By JULIE JAVELLANA-SANTOS
abs-cbnNEWS.com
An Asian trade unionist said the mass repatriation of undocumented migrants in Sabah crops up when Sabah politicians don't need voters, but disappears during elections when politicians need their votes.
"They only deport the undocumented migrants in Sabah after the elections," Ambet Yuson, a Filipino regional director of the global union, Building and Wood Workers International (BWI), said in an interview with abs-cbnNEWS.com.
Yuson will be representing this global union in a migration forum to be conducted by international civil society organizations, which will coincide with the United Nations Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) in October.
Yuson likened the situation of undocumented migrants in Sabah to those of informal settlers in Metro Manila cities. During an election campaign, all of their issues are addressed by politicians. But the dwellings of these squatters are no longer safe after an election season.
Many Filipinos, mostly from the southern-most Mindanao provinces go to Sabah to work, mostly as plantation workers, forestry and wood workers, Yuson said.
A study on Malaysian labor by the BWI placed the number of legal foreign workers in Malaysia as of end 2006 at 1.85 million, of whom 22,000 were Filipinos.
The BWI study estimated that undocumented foreign workers have reached half a million, who work mostly in Sabah.
The BWI study said Malaysia’s total legal workforce has reached 11.3 million out of a total population of 26.75 million.
Growing foreign workforce
In 2006, Malaysia began to feel a labor shortage. Malaysian Human Resources Minister Dr. Fong Chan Onn then said Malaysian employers "were submitting a large number of applications monthly to the Home Affairs Ministry to employ more foreign workers."
"If this problem (of labor shortage) is not addressed now, it is highly probable that the number of foreign workers in this country may well exceed five million by 2010," he said.
Yuson said foreign workers account for about 16 percent of the total employed work force. They are in manufacturing (22.48% or 591,363), plantation work (22.68% or 412,923), domestic work (17.54% or 319,383), construction (15.51% or 282,361), services (8.84% or 161,015), and agriculture (2.95% or 53,635).
According to BMI figures, "we can conclude that Malaysia is the largest importer of labor in the region."
Timber industry
Yuson said most wood workers in Malaysia are in Sabah and Sarawak.
More than 70 percent of the 154 plywood mills are located in Sabah and Sarawak.
For moldings, out of the 177 mills in operation, 85 are in Sabah and 26 in Sarawak.
The downstream processing mills for the production of moldings, fiber board, BCJ as well as furniture and furniture components are mainly located in Peninsular Malaysia. These mills mainly utilise rubber wood (Malaysian Oak), which are sourced from sustainable plantations.
The timber industry is one of the sectors contributing significantly to the Malaysian economy.
Malaysia is one of the major countries exporting tropical wood products, especially to Europe, Japan, Thailand, Singapore and the Middle East.
Total export earnings of wood-based products from Malaysia amounted to RM21.4 billion in 2005 compared to RM19.7 billion the previous year.
In 2003, the industry generated about 4.4% of total export earnings, and Malaysia was the world's third leading exporter of logs after Russia and the United States. It was also the second largest exporter of plywood after Indonesia and eighth leading exporter of sawn timber.
The timber industry’s contribution to the country’s GDP is approximately 5%. It offers job opportunities to about 337,000 people or nearly 3.4% of the country’s work force.
Highly dependent
The industry is highly dependent on foreign workers.
The wood-based industry in Malaysia can be classified into wood and wood products, and furniture fixtures. The wood and wood products sub-sector includes saw milling, plywood/veneer and blackboard, moldings, builder carpentry and joinery, and reconstituted wood-based panels.
Currently, there are more than 5,000 manufacturers involved in the industry. It is estimated that more than 80% of these companies are SMEs and predominantly Malaysian-owned.
The SMEs in the wood-based sector provide the largest employment followed by the food and textiles sectors.
The wooden furniture sub-sector is one of the major contributors in the wood-based industry, accounting for 33 percent of total export earnings in 2005 for the wood sector.
In 2004, Malaysia exported RM5.4 billion worth of wooden furniture mainly to the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and Singapore.
Malaysia is the world's 10th largest exporter of furniture and the third in Asia after China and Indonesia, with exports to more than 160 countries.
Malaysian furniture companies numbering more than 2,000 are mainly located in Peninsular Malaysia. A high concentration of furniture establishments are in Johor (Muar and Kluang), Selangor (Klang and Sungai Buloh) and Melaka (Bukit Rambai).
The size of these mills ranges from 1,000 to 130,000 square meters. The number of workers employed by these plants ranges from 30 to 1,300 workers with 70% of factories employing between 100 to 200 workers.
The total workforce is about 150,000 to 170,000 and almost 90% are migrants from the Nepal, Vietnam, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
